“Now we shall see her face,” Lucy thought, for she could not get rid of the feeling that if she could only see the Pretenderette’s face she would recognise it. But the Pretenderette was too wily to look down unveiled. She turned her face up, and she must have whispered the magic word, for the Hippogriff rose in the air and began to fly away with incredible swiftness across the sea.
“Oh, what shall I do?” cried Lucy, wringing her hands. You have often heard of people wringing their hands. Lucy, I assure you, really did wring hers. “Oh! Mr. Noah, what will she do with him? Where will she take him? What shall I do? How can I find him again?”
“I deeply regret, my dear child,” said Mr. Noah, “that I find myself quite unable to answer any single one of your questions.”
“But can’t I go after him?” Lucy persisted.
“I am sorry to say,” said Mr. Noah, “that we have no boats; the Pretenderette has stolen our one and only Hippogriff, and none of our camels can fly.”
“But what can I do?” Lucy stamped her foot in her agony of impatience.
“Nothing, my child,” Mr. Noah aggravatingly replied, “except to go to bed and get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow we will return to the city and see what can be done. We must consult the oracle.”
“But can’t we go now,” said Lucy, crying.
“No oracle is worth consulting till it’s had its night’s rest,” said Mr. Noah. “It is a three days’ journey. If we started now—see it is already dusk—we should arrive in the middle of the night. We will start early in the morning.”
But early in the morning there was no starting from the castle of the Dwellers by the Sea. There was indeed no one to start, and there was no castle to start from.
A young blugraiwee, peeping out of its hole after a rather disturbed night to see whether any human beings were yet stirring or whether it might venture out in search of yellow periwinkles, which are its favourite food, started, pricked its spotted ears, looked again, and, disdaining the cover of the rocks, walked boldly out across the beach. For the beach was deserted. There was no one there. No Mr. Noah, no Lucy, no gentle islanders, no M.A.’s—and what is more there were no huts and there was no castle. All was smooth, plain, bare sea-combed beach.
For the sea had at last risen. The fear of the Dwellers had been justified. Whether the sea had been curious about the ark no one knows, no one will ever know. At any rate the sea had risen up and swept away from the beach every trace of the castle, the huts and the folk who had lived there.
A bright parrot, with a streamer of motor veiling hanging to one claw, called suddenly from the clear air to the little blugraiwee.
“What’s up?” the parrot asked; “where’s everything got to?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” said the little blugraiwee; “these human things are always coming and going. Have some periwinkles? They’re very fine this morning after the storm,” it said.
VIII
Ups and Downs
We left Lucy in tears and Philip in the grasp of the hateful Pretenderette, who, seated on the Hippogriff, was bearing him away across the smooth blueness of the wide sea.
“Oh, Mr. Noah,” said Lucy, between sniffs and sobs, “how can she! You did say the Hippogriff could only carry one!”
“One ordinary human being,” said Mr. Noah gently; “you forget that dear Philip is now an earl.”
“But do you really think he’s safe?” Lucy asked.
“Yes,” said Mr. Noah. “And now, dear Lucy, no more questions. Since your arrival on our shores I have been gradually growing more accustomed to being questioned, but I still find it unpleasant and fatiguing. Desist, I entreat.”
So Lucy desisted and everyone went to bed, and, for crying is very tiring, to sleep. But not for long.
Lucy was awakened in her bed of soft dry seaweed by the sound of the castle alarm bell, and by the blaring of trumpets and the shouting of many voices. A bright light shone in at the window of her room. She jumped up and ran to the window and leaned out. Below lay the great courtyard of the castle, a moving sea of people on which hundreds of torches seemed to float, and the sound of shouting rose in the air as foam rises in the wind.
“The Fear! The Fear!” people were shouting. “To the ark! to the ark!” And the black night that pressed round the castle was loud with the wild roar of waves and the shriek of a tumultuous wind.
Lucy ran to the door of her room. But suddenly she stopped.
“My clothes,” she said. And dressed herself hastily. For she perceived that her own petticoats and shoes were likely to have better wearing qualities than seaweed could possess, and if they were all going to take refuge in the ark, she felt she would rather have her own clothes on.
“Mr. Noah is sure to come for me,” she most sensibly told herself. “And I’ll get as many clothes on as I can.” Her own dress, of course, had been left at Polistopolis, but the ballet dress would be better than
